


The Aliens Have Come, and Oh No, They're Cute!

by Adaris



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Aliens, Botany Experiments, Dirk is a menace to space stations, Gen, Let Todd Drink His Coffee In Peace 2K18, Pizza, This is irrelevant to the fic but Mona is the ham sandwich
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-12 03:24:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16865236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adaris/pseuds/Adaris
Summary: Inspired bythis postby gentlyundercover on Tumblr. Todd is an astronaut, and Dirk is the annoying alien who can't leave well enough alone.





	The Aliens Have Come, and Oh No, They're Cute!

**Author's Note:**

> There’s another fic that I should be writing, but I found this in my Tumblr drafts and here we are

They told him that in the depths of space, you could never know what to expect. A computer malfunction might send you hurtling back to Earth the hard way, or a cookie crumb in the wrong place might short out all your electronics and leave you to freeze to death. 

They did not tell him that there were aliens, specifically one alien with a perfectly stereotypical British accent, and they definitely did not mention that that alien was  _weird_. 

Todd drank all his coffee in one gulp while the alien in question, dressed in a neon yellow space suit, examined a cookbook with a single-minded intensity. 

“I mean, what do you even put on a pizza?” Dirk asked. “Jellyfish? Soda cans? Toothpaste? Hey, that’s not a bad idea. You can eat and keep your dental plates clean at the same time!”

“No, Dirk, you put normal stuff on pizzas. Mushrooms and pepperoni and whatever.” Todd stared at his face in the reflection of the window and rubbed a hand absently over his stubbly beard. 

Dirk frowned at that, but snapped back to his usual aggressively cheerful self a moment later. “So what defines a normal pizza topping?”

“If it tastes good on pizza, then it’s a topping.” Todd sighed and went back to get another pouch of coffee. Cups and zero gravity did not mix. 

“How do you know if something tastes good on pizza? Who told you? Was it a kind of trial and error? Exciting!” Dirk floated past Todd upside-down, although in space, that was relative.

“No, you just… know. Toothpaste doesn’t taste good, like, ever. Now can you not talk or touch stuff while I give my daily update to Houston?” Todd asked, even though it was probably a lost cause.

Dirk mimed zipping his lips and throwing away the key, a habit he’d picked up from watching endless daytime television. He hailed from a distant, boring planet which he refused to name, on the grounds that it was too boring. Like most of the people of his unnamed world, Dirk had feathery hair, a pair of fluffy wings in strange colors (Dirk’s faded from lemon yellow to dusty turquoise), and bright, birdlike eyes that saw  _everything_. Unlike most of the people of his unnamed world, Dirk was psychic. Or, not psychic, but capable of seeing the web of connections that spread across the universe, how one thing influenced a thousand; or how, as he always said, everything was connected. 

“This is Brotzman. Nothing to report, everything is going according to schedule.” He spent some time chatting with various people on Earth, all the while keeping a close eye on a certain yellow-clad alien literally leafing through a botany experiment.

 _This is delicious_ , Dirk mouthed while pointing to dirt from one of the pots. 

Todd covered the microphone with his hand and shouted silently,  _That is not food!_

Dirk looked surprised and floated away to stare at something else, leaving a trail of dirt crumbs that Todd would definitely have to collect. Somehow.

After exactly five seconds, Todd looked back at him to find bits of the CO2 filter floating through the air, and a confused Dirk trying to shove the pieces back into the wall. 

 _I SAID NO TOUCHING!_  Todd yelled in silence. He turned the radio off and actually yelled, “What are you doing?!”

“Having… fun?” Dirk asked tentatively. 

“I’ll fix it,” Todd grumbled. He started to piece the filter back together, chasing down some of the parts that had drifted away. This was definitely not his area of expertise.

“Why haven’t you told your friends on Earth that I’m here?”

Todd, already focused on fixing the filter, jumped in surprise, or would have if there had been gravity. “What?”

Dirk rested his chin on his hands and floated steadily more upside-down. “I’m from another planet! Am I not precisely the person they’ve wanted to meet for hundreds of years? Intelligent life from not Earth? I feel like the first thing you should’ve done is tell them. Not, say, yell at me for leaving a ham sandwich in the airlock. Which I’ve told you repeatedly was an accident.”

“I thought they’d probably dissect you or something,” Todd said absently, pawing through the hovering bits of filter. “I mean, you’re an alien. And a psychic (well, kind of) alien. They’d be all over that, especially the military. I’ve seen the movies, and no offense, but you’re prime dissecting material.”

Uncharacteristically, Dirk said nothing. 

After even more nothing from Dirk, Todd turned around to look at him. The alien had curled in on himself so he was completely wrapped in his fluffy teal wings. “I thought humans were different. But they want the same thing that everyone else does.”

“Hey, I’ll stop them if they ever try anything. Sorry I… uh… said all of that stuff,” Todd said vaguely, patting Dirk’s arm. More seriously, he added, “I won’t let them dissect you.”  _The way they apparently tried to on your homeworld_.

“You won’t?” Dirk asked, looking down at Todd with soulful eyes. “Do you promise?”

“I promise. Now help me with this filter, I have no idea how it works,” Todd said, and he nudged Dirk with his shoulder. 

Dirk smiled a great beaming smile that lit up his face, and his wings flailed out joyfully and almost smacked Todd. “Well, it’s really quite simple,” he said, grabbing a pen and sticking it into the wall at random.

“Dirk, that’s a pen.”

“This is definitely part of the thingy,” Dirk protested, although it was clear he had no idea what he was doing. 

“Fine, I’ll get the manual,” Todd sighed. He floated to another module of the station, knowing that when he got back, he’d have even more things to fix. And for some reason, the thought made him smile.


End file.
